X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[Space Satan]

But will fake german scientist return? Her saying "kowennen see mich howeren" was my favourite gaming moment of the last 15 years.

No more german, have your nigger ex-traitor.

 

[Grotesque]

So there are no more ufo interceptors, no ufo combat. That sucks big time.
Instead of making something with it, they decided to cut it off completely because in the last xcom it was for decor mostly.
A ship of that size would have beel logical to have some kind of airships for defense.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Some infos on the strategic layer in the ign vid, looks good. If they really can offer multiple viable paths instead of a single go to strategy, great.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So there are no more ufo interceptors, no ufo combat. That sucks big time.
Instead of making something with it, they decided to cut it off completely because in the last xcom it was for decor mostly.
A ship of that size would have beel logical to have some kind of airships for defense.

I think there might be. In that Dark Events screen there was a UFO hunting the Avenger.

 

[bonescraper]

So there are no more ufo interceptors, no ufo combat. That sucks big time.
Instead of making something with it, they decided to cut it off completely because in the last xcom it was for decor mostly.
A ship of that size would have beel logical to have some kind of airships for defense.

The aliens aren't invading anymore so it would make zero sense.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The aliens aren't invading anymore so it would make zero sense.

But they still need to transport supplies from city to city, no?

 

[bonescraper]

But they still need to transport supplies from city to city, no?

Cause trucks, trains or hell... teleport facilities are completely out of the question? I won't miss the shitty minigame, no game managed to make it deep enough or even remotely fun for me to care. Either bring it to the next level, or don't bother at all.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Cause trucks, trains or hell... teleport facilities are completely out of the question? I won't miss the shitty minigame, no game managed to make it deep enough or even remotely fun for me to care. Either bring it to the next level, or don't bother at all.

If you want your weapons and soldiers to get their supplies late, yeah.

 

[ArchAngel]

If you want your weapons and soldiers to get their supplies late, yeah.

They have been doing it for 20 years now, they got enough supplies all around the globe so they don't need them right now now NOW!

 

[veevoir]

Other Gamescom video, the official stream. Trigger warning, it starts with XCOM: The Sims.

I'm not really sad about losing UFO missions, they were always kind of tacked on, though I will miss the additional resources management it required. All'n'all, hyped as fuck, especially by fact that finally game will be much more random than the linearity of previous one.

 

[Starwars]

I think the biggest positive to take away from a lot of the preview stuff is that they talk a lot about randomizing and making the game more dynamic. If they succeed at that, that alone will take it a huge step above the first game.

Fuck the story though. Wish I could just turn that shit off because it was *terrible* in the first game, so bad.

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page is up now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/268500

 

[Zombra]

I know I'm a bad person for liking character customization, but I'm excited about the posture/demeanor options for idle animations.

 

[veevoir]

I know I'm a bad person for liking character customization, but I'm excited about the posture/demeanor options for idle animations.

It's like sims.. but with guns.

So better sims than sims.

 

[Inspectah]

I know I'm a bad person for liking character customization, but I'm excited about the posture/demeanor options for idle animations.

I like it too. Since they made squads so small, there is a lot more attachment to individual soldiers, no more of that rookie bullet sponge that we do on the old UFO/TFtD, so the more customization there is, the better.

 

[ArchAngel]

I like it too. Since they made squads so small, there is a lot more attachment to individual soldiers, no more of that rookie bullet sponge that we do on the old UFO/TFtD, so the more customization there is, the better.

That rookie bullet sponge was one of the best parts of Xcom. The creepy music, aliens being able to see farther than players, having better accuracy and weapons that one shot your troops. It all contributed to the awesome horror feeling you had when playing UFO and TFTD. New Xcom is blah in that regard. I feels more like playing modern take on Jagged Alliance with enemies reskinned as aliens.

 

[Zeriel]

That rookie bullet sponge was one of the best parts of Xcom. The creepy music, aliens being able to see farther than players, having better accuracy and weapons that one shot your troops. It all contributed to the awesome horror feeling you had when playing UFO and TFTD. New Xcom is blah in that regard. I feels more like playing modern take on Jagged Alliance with enemies reskinned as aliens.

I loved aliens acting on their own, plasma beams coming out of the darkness, that brooding sense of dread. Squad sizes over 8 soldiers I wasn't a fan of, though. You tended to do it for maximum efficiency, but most of the time it just led to tedious busy work as you shuffled them all about (or worse, gave in to impatience and left half your squad idle somewhere because you didn't care about them).

I think 6-8 is the sweet spot. 4 is way too few, even with nuXCOM's mechanics.

 

[Jaedar]

I loved aliens acting on their own, plasma beams coming out of the darkness, that brooding sense of dread. Squad sizes over 8 soldiers I wasn't a fan of, though. You tended to do it for maximum efficiency, but most of the time it just led to tedious busy work as you shuffled them all about (or worse, gave in to impatience and left half your squad idle somewhere because you didn't care about them).

X-com apoc alleviated this by grouping soldiers in squads, allowing for easier control of many dudes, making it way less of a hassle moving around 12+ dudes. It works very well actually, when you want/need, you're controlling 12 dudes, and when you don't, you're controlling 3-6 squads.

 

[ArchAngel]

I loved aliens acting on their own, plasma beams coming out of the darkness, that brooding sense of dread. Squad sizes over 8 soldiers I wasn't a fan of, though. You tended to do it for maximum efficiency, but most of the time it just led to tedious busy work as you shuffled them all about (or worse, gave in to impatience and left half your squad idle somewhere because you didn't care about them).

I think 6-8 is the sweet spot. 4 is way too few, even with nuXCOM's mechanics.

I didn't mind using many soldiers. First 6 soldiers were always rookies and they would just run around using up all TU and hoping to survive long enough to find alien positions. Then experience troops would exit the skyranger as needed. I would never unload all my troops and use in missions. I would usually run around with about 8 troops and unload others as the first ones died.

 

[Zeriel]

I didn't mind using many soldiers. First 6 soldiers were always rookies and they would just run around using up all TU and hoping to survive long enough to find alien positions. Then experience troops would exit the skyranger as needed. I would never unload all my troops and use in missions. I would usually run around with about 8 troops and unload others as the first ones died.

This reminds me, one of my ideas to address this issue in Long War/XCOM 2 modding was to have some sort of reinforcement system. i.e, you could only have 6-8 (or 10-12 with that Long War perk for special missions) active at any time, but if you go below the cap due to casualties, you could call in paratroopers or whatever. They would take a turn or two to arrive and you could have some counterplay, but I dunno. Maybe it's a dumb idea to let the player throw infinite numbers of soldiers at the problem until it goes away, I always felt of two minds on that aspect of 90's X-COM. Perhaps if soldier recruitment cost was high enough that you couldn't just have hundreds of soldiers at base.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Maybe it's a dumb idea to let the player throw infinite numbers of soldiers at the problem until it goes away

Just add some permanent morale loss mechanic for that, like surviving soldiers becoming unstable after deaths of many comrades and losing their shit in battle. Or triggering some events in strategic layer. (suicide, hurting other personel)

 

[ArchAngel]

Why would not Earth throw away huge numbers of troops vs technically superior foe? Isn't that what we did in all wars since wars existed. In WW2 russians fought nazi that way. Whole WW1 was throwing troops away because tech on both sides was too advanced for their old war tactics. In today's wars in middle east USA fights much larger numbers of enemies that also die in much larger numbers.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Just add some permanent morale loss mechanic for that, like surviving soldiers becoming unstable after deaths of many comrades and losing their shit in battle. Or triggering some events in strategic layer. (suicide, hurting other personel)

Or have it that the skyranger can actually carry about 20 guys, but it only drops down a few at a time.
Sort of what I did in the OG; rather than deploying everyone at once, I would send a few out at first, and gradually send out more when needed.

 

[Average Manatee]

X-com apoc alleviated this by grouping soldiers in squads, allowing for easier control of many dudes, making it way less of a hassle moving around 12+ dudes. It works very well actually, when you want/need, you're controlling 12 dudes, and when you don't, you're controlling 3-6 squads.

Problem with Apoc is that pathfinding was horrible, and since the soldiers moved simultaneously you'd have soldiers spending 1/3rd of their TUs walking around each other. Could have been easily improved by at least making the soldiers walk diagonally.

Another major thing Apoc did that is easy to overlook is that it let you order a unit over multiple turns. It's a lot easier to keep track of what you want to do when you can order once over 3 or 4 turns and then come back when its done.

 

[Grotesque]